


Come of Age

by xtinethepirate



Category: X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) - Fandom
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M, Families of Choice, Father-Daughter Relationship, Grief/Mourning, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-30
Updated: 2016-05-30
Packaged: 2018-07-11 02:07:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7021399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xtinethepirate/pseuds/xtinethepirate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What came before the world ended for Erik Lehnsherr, and what came after.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Come of Age

**Author's Note:**

  * For [temple_mistress](https://archiveofourown.org/users/temple_mistress/gifts).



> Written to exorcise some FEELS after seeing X-Men: Apocalypse. I've only seen it the once and have not yet beta'd this (banged it out in an afternoon after wallowing), so apologies for any errors. Title is a reference to "Dear Theodosia" from _Hamilton_. 
> 
> The IMDB credits list Erik's wife in Poland as Magda, while Peter's mother is just listed as "Ms. Maximoff." I've followed that convention for this fic. Though technically the Paris Peace Accords (on the 10th anniversary this film is set) were in January, the timing of various media references like _Return of the Jedi_ , along with the look of upstate New York in full leaf and flower, has me setting it in late May/early June. 
> 
> For Temple_Mistress, whose computer is being an asshole today <3.

_domestic life was never quite my style,_  
_but when you smile—  
_ _you knock me out; I fall apart,  
_ _and I thought I was so smart_

**June, 1983**

The media was full of praise for them, breathless in their commentary about how Xavier's X-Men, aided by Magneto, had averted the apocalypse. 

Every bit as blind as ever. They couldn't see that the world had ended a week before. 

 

**August, 1980**

"Tatuś," Nina said suddenly, looking up from the rabbit she was petting. "Why can't you speak to animals?"

Erik sat up from where he'd been reclined in the grass watching her play, and reached out to stroke her hair as gently as she had the rabbit's fur. "Because you're a very special girl, liebling," he told her with a smile, "and you have a very special gift, just so you can talk to your friends."

She huffed, apparently unsatisfied by that answer which was, by now, almost rote, and blew her bangs back off her face. They'd had many talks in the last year about her special gift, and how she mustn't let any of the other children know about it lest they become jealous. She was good about it for the most part, as careful and conscientious as she was in all things, even at only six years old. Still, it broke his heart every time he had to remind her to be safe, to hide part of herself away that she should by all rights have been able to be open about and proud of. Such a sweet and innocent power, to be able to speak kindly to the creatures of the forest. The last thing he wanted was for her to feel ashamed of her abilities. And so he tried to remind her of what a gift it was, would walk out to the clearing with her in the mornings and pass the time with her before he had to go to work and she to school, watching as she spoke happily with her friends. 

If people's pets and the odd bird tended to gravitate toward her when they were in town, well, anyone could see what an uncommonly kind and gentle child she was. They didn't seem to think any more of it than that, though Erik watched them closely, carefully. Their passports and few valuables were kept gathered together, against a day he hoped would never come. So far, it hadn't. 

Now, he tugged lightly on the ends of her hair when she blew them back, teasing. "Am I going to need to cut this off? Make a new mop for your mother?"

She rolled her eyes at him, such a teenager gesture in his baby girl that he had to gather her close for a hug. She was growing up too quickly. She suffered it for a few minutes before squirming to extricate herself; reluctantly, he let her go. 

"If you can't speak to animals," she said thoughtfully, digging her fingers into the grass, "what is your special gift?"

Erik smiled at his daughter, who had her mother's eyes after all, but maybe a touch too much of her father's seriousness, and he lied. "I don't have one, my love. Not everyone does. That's why there's a special school in America just for children like you."

"With the Professor and the Raven Lady?" She liked the stories he made up for her about them, even more than her mother's fairy tales. Raven, with her bird-name, was a particular favourite. She climbed into his lap, ungainly and utterly unselfconscious, and leaned her back against his chest. "When I'm older, I'm going to go to that school," she informed him. 

"You could," he agreed—though wouldn't Charles find _that_ interesting—"I think you'd like it there. But your mother and I would miss you."

"Well," she conceded, "I wouldn't go until I was really old. Like...like when I'm fifteen, even. And I could probably teach you to talk to them too, so that you could come with me."

Maybe in another nine years he could enter the States without being arrested on sight. Maybe Charles would have forgiven him by then. Neither seemed especially likely. 

"All right, when you reach the ancient age of fifteen, we'll go."

"You'll probably be about a million years old by then," she noted, and then scolded him when his laughter scared away the rabbits. 

 

**June, 1983**

In his pocket at all times now, there were four objects. Four reminders. Four losses. A locket, and a ring. A coin. A bullet. 

 

**June, 1979**

"Henryk?"

There was an edge to Magda's voice that made Erik put his book aside quickly and join her in the kitchen. She was standing at the window, hands cupped around her mug of tea, frowning. Automatically, he dropped a kiss to her shoulder as he came up behind her, and could feel her tension. 

"Something the matter?" he asked, reaching reflexively for all the metal in the house. 

She lifted her chin in response to his question, indicating their back garden. 

Nina was playing out there, laughing delightedly as birds circled around her and dropped to sit on her shoulders and take food from her hands. Some combed their beaks through her hair, apparently prompting the fits of giggles. She looked happy; she looked safe. 

Dropping one hand to Magda's hip, Erik released the metal and his fears with it, and kissed her neck. "She's always been good with animals," he said, unconcerned, sliding his arm around her waist and pulling her back against him. "Gets it from her mother: you tamed me, didn't you?"

Magda did not relax into his teasing. "This is different."

Erik looked again. Saw what he hadn't before—what he hadn't wanted to see: the large birds of prey perched companionably alongside the smaller songbirds that they would normally hunt; the way Nina laughed as though in answer to the chirping and cawing noises. It made his mouth go dry with sudden fear, and he straightened. 

"She's so young," Magda said, and he heard the same fear in her voice. "She's only five, Erik—" a slip, to use his real name, but he barely noticed, "—I thought if she was...I thought we'd have more time. That she'd be older."

"I'm sorry," Erik said, helpless, not knowing what else he could say. It had always been a risk, of course, but _oh_ , Erik had not wanted it for her. So much hatred and fear in the world still directed toward mutants, hatred and fear he had hoped he could shield his family from by living this lie, this human life. What had happened to Azazel, to Emma, to himself...he never wanted any of that to touch his baby. 

Magda set her tea down abruptly and turned in his arms, pressing her face into his shoulder. "You'll teach her?" she asked, voice wavering. "I don't want her to be ashamed of what she can do—I'm not ashamed of her, or of you—but you'll teach her to control it? To be safe?"

"I promise," Erik said, kissing her hair. Outside, the birds took wing in one mighty flock; below, his daughter danced in a circle, raising her arms and shrieking bird cries. "I won't let anything happen to her."

That night, Nina tucked in with her dolls and without any idea of the upheaval she'd caused, Magda finally asleep with her head on his shoulder, Erik stared up at the ceiling, unable to quiet his mind. It had been so easy once to stand before the world, blood on his hands, and declare his pride in being a mutant, his willingness to fight and bleed and sacrifice anyone who crossed him for that pride. It had been so easy to accuse Charles of being a coward for not following suit. He'd had nothing to lose then apart from his own life, and that he held cheaply. He'd had nothing to protect. 

"Charles," he said aloud in the stillness of the room, to the shadows moving across the ceiling. Closed his eyes and repeated it, more desperately. _"Charles"._

_I don't know how to do this, how to teach her and protect her. Please, old friend._

There was no answer. He wondered why he had expected one. 

 

**June, 1983**

Rebuilding a house, even a house the size of Charles's mansion, was easy enough: Jean could move any of the materials Erik couldn't, pulling up the walls and the floors and the shingles, while he handled the plumbing, the wiring, and the millions of pieces of metal that held the construction together. Meanwhile, Ororo kept the sky clear of rain or cloud to speed them along. 

It went quickly enough—too quickly, really—and after only a few weeks, Erik woke up in his new bed, in his new room, with no purpose to drive him any longer. No revenge to take or battles to fight, no home to build, ...no one to chivvy into eating breakfast before she went outside to speak with the deer. 

Birdsong and children's laughter floated up from the gardens outside as the house awoke and its inhabitants went about their day, as he stared at the ceiling and felt too heavy to move. The quality of the light shifted, deepened as morning faded into afternoon. 

_Erik?_ Charles's voice brushed against his mind, tentative, but Erik turned it aside and closed his eyes once more. 

"You're a telepath, Charles; you can convince me of anything," he told Charles later that evening, when the grief had passed enough that he was able to breathe again, able to shower and dress and function as though he weren't doing so without a heart (his heart was buried in a pine copse in Poland, with nothing to mark where it lay). 

Charles, shockingly, didn't argue with him. Since that day in Cairo, Erik had not made much effort to keep Charles out of his head, and maybe he saw what lay beneath his calm veneer. This house full of children—remarkable, gifted children, some close to his daughter in age, but none of them his Nina, not his baby—filled him with longing, but it was not, could not, be his home. 

"Goodbye, old friend," Charles said instead, and Erik carried the endearment close to his heart as he left. 

Of course, Charles was a telepath, and telepaths were meddlesome, and so the thought dropped neatly into Erik's head just as he reached the gates.

_It does wake me in the middle of the night, my friend. But being far from those I cherish would do nothing to abate that fear; it would only take away the joy I feel at being near them._

Joy. Erik thought of Nina's first toddling, shaky steps, and felt the heavy weight of the locket he carried. 

"It's a cheap trick to use your telepathy to get the last word, Charles," he said aloud to the interior of his car, and gestured the gates open. 

There was the warmth of laughter in his thoughts, and a phantom squeeze on his hand. 

_You'll have to come back sometime, then, to argue with me further._

 

**July, 1974**

"Ja pierdolę! Are you going to make us listen to that noise all day, Henryk?"

Jakob's jeer broke Erik out of his reverie. The noises of the foundry intruded again, a symphony of metal, and he realized that he'd been singing to himself. Nina had laughed that morning when he'd picked her up, a loud, full-bellied laugh, with a toothless smile just for him to go along with it. He'd been walking on air ever since. 

"Get fucked, Jakob," he replied pleasantly, and turned back to his task. 

"Will that make me walk around smiling like a fool if I do? It wouldn't surprise me that your wife is that good!"

Erik made a crude gesture in response, not minding the teasing, and Magda could more than handle Jakob with her sharp wit when she was around him. It was meant light heartedly enough, and he supposed he deserved the ribbing after subjecting them to snatches of songs for weeks. It had started slowly, faltering snatches of a lullaby barely remembered, a whisper of his mother's voice in his thoughts, but he had been singing more and more in the last seven months. Mostly little nonsense songs as he played with Nina, narrating what they were doing for her, but soon enough he caught himself humming while making dinner (or, apparently not infrequently, at work). 

"You're doing it again," Magda laughed as he came into their room after checking to make sure Nina was settled for the night. "Can you tell me what happened to my taciturn husband? I haven't seen him in...oh, half a year now? He looked like this," she twisted her face into an exaggerated scowl. 

"He looked exactly like that, did he?" Erik tugged his shirt off over his head as Magda watched him, and undid his jeans. "I'll have to keep an eye out for him; he looks terrifying."

"He was," Magda replied with a small grin, kicking the sheet back and casually sliding her nightgown up over her knees. "Almost as terrifying as your singing."

The low tone, full of intent, took any sting out of the insult. Grinning himself, Erik stalked toward the bed, grabbing her wrists playfully and pressing her flat against the mattress under him. "Whatever would your husband think of me being in bed with his wife?" He purred against her mouth. 

"Oh," Magda breathed, pressing up against him. "That could be very dangerous indeed. You'd best be quick before he comes home." 

Erik snorted and let her wrists go, in order to push her nightgown up further and slip his hand between her legs. "Maybe I'd better sing to scare him off," he teased. 

"Mm, you could," Magda hummed in response, head arched back against the pillow. She ran her hands down the broad expanse of his back and pulled him closer, pressed her mouth to his and, soon enough, guided him inside of her. "I like it when you sing," she gasped against his lips, fingers curling at the nape of his neck. "It lets me know you're happy."

"You want to know I'm happy?" Erik slid his hands under her hips and hitched her legs up around his waist, pulling a low, throaty cry from her. "Then I'll sing for you."

And he did: the most filthy, explicit words he could think of as they made love, grinning unrepentantly, leaving Magda breathless with laughter and hitting at his shoulders until he relented. 

 

**May, 1984**

There had been a few times after he'd left that Erik had drifted back to Westchester, rudderless as he was these days. Charles always greeted him warmly, plied him with tea and scotch, chess games and old debates to drag out and rehash. Raven was usually there too, having found it easier to slot herself back into this family than he had, and would plead and cajole and insult him until he agreed to put the new X-Men through their paces with some combat training. Even Hank had been pleasant to him, almost friendly, since Cairo. 

But the year turned and spring encroached on the estate, and as the date drew nearer, Erik moved West and North again. Mostly aimless, he travelled until he found snow on the ground once more, and a small hunting cabin, abandoned for the season, far away from anyone or anything. 

The vodka worked to numb him for a while on the anniversary itself, putting a comfortable cushion of drunkenness between himself and his memories (another forest, another cabin, the arrow he didn't hear or see until it was too late). But when he woke the next morning, bleary and sick and with a vague memory of having stood out in the snow screaming at the sky until his voice had given out, there was still a hole in his chest where his heart had been, the wound as fresh and raw as it had been a year ago. He didn't think it would ever heal. 

Summoning the locket from the bedside table, Erik curled over onto his side under the thin, musty blanket he'd found and clenched it in his fist, squeezing his eyes shut. There was an intricate filigree of metal on the face of it, and he traced it with his powers over and over again, until his shaking eased. He'd asked Charles for advice on how to deal with his fear; he'd never asked him how to deal with his loss. 

"Charles," he rasped, what was left of his voice thick and choked, not really expecting a reply. 

But immediately, Charles was _there_ , presence filling his mind like the rising sun filled a room with light. He didn't offer any platitudes, didn't try to soothe Erik's thoughts. He was just there, offering a silent witness to his grief so Erik wouldn't be entirely alone, and a phantom touch over his clenched hand. 

 

**April, 1974**

"You really think so?" Erik said dubiously, lifting his daughter into the air and peering at her face. Momentarily distracted from her fussing by the swoop of movement, Nina blinked at him owlishly and waved her tiny fists, before her face crumpled once again. As she resumed wailing, Erik gathered her close, bouncing her gently up and down without any real expectation of success at this point. "Shhhh, little one, my liebling, shhh." 

He glanced wryly over his shoulder at Magda, who had slumped exhausted onto the couch. "We know she has your lungs, at least," he remarked, and pressed a kiss to the top of Nina's head. "But don't all infants have blue eyes?"

"Erik," Magda began with a tired laugh, but caught herself quickly. Even in the privacy of their own home, he insisted they used his alias. It was safer that way, would make it a habit and prevent the possibility of slips in the future. "I still say she has your eyes, but have it your way. She's as stubborn as her father, though."

As Erik hoisted Nina up into the air again in hopes of stopping her crying once more, she squirmed, coughed out a sob, and threw up all over him. 

"See? She agrees with me," Magda said smugly. 

 

**January, 1985**

He had found one (increasingly transparent) reason after another to stay on campus as winter set in. Another recent outsider herself, Ororo had stuck close to his side since his arrival in November, and never ventured too far away, whether she was insisting on taking point in the training exercises Raven roped him into, or lying on the library couch while he and Charles played chess in the evenings. A bit bemused by the attention, Erik started to teach her German in exchange for lessons in her native Masri; it had been a few years since he had last learned a new language, though he would not speak that one ever again. 

He resolutely ignored Charles's unsubtle hints that he take over the literature course in the winter semester. While Charles's taste was execrable and the students deserved better, he did not intend to stay long enough to make drawing up a syllabus worthwhile. 

Despite all his intentions to leave before December started, then before exams, then before Hanukkah, all of a sudden the year had turned, and he had been in Westchester for almost two months. It was longer than he had ever stayed before, and it left him feeling restless and uncomfortable. With a storm closing in around the Eastern Seaboard, too powerful for Ororo to deter even if she and the other students hadn't desperately been hoping for a snow day or three to extend their holidays, Erik retreated to his rooms. It was still...difficult to be around the younger children, and January was an especially hard month, these days. 

As the clouds thickened and the snow started to come down in fat, fluffy flakes, Erik sat in a chair by the balcony doors, not seeing the words printed on the pages of the book he held, no matter how much he tried to convince himself he was reading it. 

A polite knock—in his mind, rather than at the door—and Erik finally gave up the pretense. It was getting too dark to read, in any case. He set the book aside, rubbed one hand over his tired eyes, and gestured the door open for Charles...and Raven, as it turned out, following a few steps behind with her lips pursed, body language poised as though ready to beat a hasty retreat.

Charles had a cake balanced precariously in his lap. A cake with candles set into it, flames cheerily bright in the deepening twilight. Halfway out of his chair to greet them, Erik froze, the breath pushed from his lungs.

"I told you this was a bad idea, Charles," Raven said in an undertone, glancing from Erik to her brother. But Charles held up a hand to forestall further comment and, with a sigh and a muttered comment Erik couldn't hear, she closed the door behind her. Erik sank slowly back into his chair, still unable to get enough air into his lungs.

"I thought," Charles began, and despite his earlier assured gesture to Raven there was uncertainty in his voice, "that it might be...beneficial, I suppose, to mark the good anniversaries, not just the painful ones. Remember some happier times with...well," he looked back at Raven, then shrugged self-deprecatingly, "with family, such as we are."

Damn it. Damn _him_ : Charles must have looked into his head to find out what today was, had gone snooping and prying into where he wasn't welcome, and _how fucking dare he?_

But the rage burned out as quickly as it had been kindled. It wasn't Charles he was angry at, not really; it wasn't Charles's fault that his daughter wasn't alive to see her birthday. He wasn't the one who had let her down. Erik drew in a slow breath and nodded, not trusting his voice.

Raven grabbed another chair for herself as Charles wheeled over to where Erik sat to put the cake between them on the low table. The candles reflected in the too-bright glimmer of his eyes, and when he reached out to clasp one of Erik's hands in his own, Erik had to look away quickly and press the other to his face, momentarily overcome. She would have been eleven years old today, his little one.

Sitting awkwardly across from them, Raven cleared her throat after a few moments of silence. "Fine, you two can carry on crying over it, but I actually want to eat this cake, so—" she leaned forward and blew out the candles. 

"Raven—!" Charles exclaimed, horrified, but behind his hand Erik started to laugh. 

"No, she's right; we shouldn't waste it. Fuck, I'm a mess," he apologized wiping at his eyes and gesturing the lights in the room back on. 

"You're both messes," Raven retorted, brusquely handing him a fork. "Two weepy old ladies. No wonder you needed to keep me around, Charles; you wouldn't get anything done otherwise."

There didn't appear to be any plates, so Erik shook his head and dug his fork into the cake directly (flicking a bit of icing at Raven for the old lady remark). He missed, and Raven mocked him for his poor aim, and Charles bemoaned his choice in role models for his impressionable students. It didn't fix anything, or even make the day less hard—Erik didn't think he would ever be anything like fine again, now—but he nevertheless felt his heart lift a bit for being among, yes, family. 

"Let me tell you Nina's favourite story," he said slowly, thinking of her sitting in his lap in a clearing in Poland, staring up at him raptly, "about the Raven Lady and the Professor."

 

**January, 1974**

She came early, and she came quickly. The storm had been going for over a day by then, and the snow was piled too high around the cabin for them to get out, was coming down too quickly for the doctor to come to them. It was the most terrified and helpless Erik had felt in decades, unable to do much more than hold her hand and watch as Magda screamed and pushed and brought their daughter into the world. 

Not caring about the blood on her skin beyond his attempts to gently wipe it away, Erik wrapped her (impossibly tiny, impossibly perfect, so delicate in his hands) in one of his old shirts, the fabric soft and warm, and held her close for too short a moment before he passed her to her mother. Nina squirmed and cried, unhappy with all this upheaval until she was nestled against Magda's breast. Erik realized his cheeks were damp, that he was grinning so widely his face hurt. 

Long after mother and daughter were asleep and he'd cleaned up as best he could, Erik stayed awake, mesmerized by the perfection of her tiny hands and fingernails, the small curves of her nose and earlobes, rapt by the way she slept against his chest in such complete trust.

 

**September, 1987**

"That's a lovely song."

Surprised, Erik turned to see Charles in the kitchen doorway. Moving automatically in the early morning, through which Charles tended to sleep, Erik hadn't even felt him approach. Tilting his head, he smiled at how bleary Charles still looked. "My mother taught it to me. You're up early, Charles." 

As Charles gestured rueful acknowledgement, Erik turned his attention back to the stove. It wouldn't be long before a horde of hungry teenagers descended on the kitchen in search of breakfast before their lessons started. "Your tea isn't ready yet, but your students will probably devour us whole if I don't have something on the table to forestall them. Here—" he lifted the kettle from where he'd shoved it out of the way to the back of the counter with his powers and passed it over to Charles.

"Thank you, I needed that." Charles wheeled past him to the sink, stifling a yawn against the back of his hand as he started to fill the kettle with water. His teapot and earl grey were within reach, so Erik left him to it, concentrating on the pancakes and scrambled eggs in front of him.

"I don't think I've heard you sing before," Charles mused, holding up the kettle and smiling at him when Erik obligingly floated it back across to place on a burner. "You have a lovely voice, my friend. What does it mean?"

The song, he meant, Erik knew; the song he hadn't even been aware he'd been singing. Fleetingly, wistfully, he thought of Magda and, as always, the thought of her caused an ache under his ribs. But it was a good pain, in a way: it was a reminder of the love he'd had, as much as it was a reminder of what he'd lost. 

"I used to sing for my daughter," he said, flipping the last of the pancakes out onto a plate and turning to carry them over to the table. "It means that I'm happy."

 

**July, 1973**

Instead of her usual habit of sneaking up on him and jumping on his back the moment he came in the door, Erik found Magda sitting at the kitchen table when he got home. There was a cup of apparently forgotten tea cracked in her hands, and she was staring off into space, her eyes clearly reddened like she had been crying.

Wary, Erik glanced around the kitchen as he entered, already reaching for a knife with his powers in case there was some danger lurking. It would only be a matter of time before he was recognized, before someone came for him, after all. "Magda?" he asked, stretching out his senses to take in the rest of the house, feeling for weapons. "Did something happen?"

She blinked and focused on him, nodded. As his heart lurched with fear—hadn't she gone to the doctor today? She'd felt run down lately and had assured him it wasn't serious, but what it if had been? He couldn't lose her, too—she started to smile, beaming wide, and her eyes brimmed over with renewed tears. 

"Erik, you're going to be a father."

**Author's Note:**

> "Dear Theodosia," if you want to ugly-cry some more over father/daughter Erik feelings: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QryVSsUpIe0" 
> 
> My "Erik Lehnsherr is kinda really Aaron Burr" feelings: let me show them to you.


End file.
